I'm watching this classic black and white movie Dark Passage (1947, Delmer Daves) and something weird happens. The camera adopts the point of view of Humphrey Bogart's character... and keeps showing us only this FPV... I'm intrigue cause it's very odd for an oldie. Sure, there must be some precedents! There always are. But like, some people think Hardcore Henry, a last year movie, was being innovative and experimental and we are talking about the 40s here!
So, 20 minutes into the movie, everything looks clean and sharp and the camera is doing some nice tricks and stuff (way better than Henry) and I'm beginning to think that this is a gem or something... Boy, I was wrong!
Ok. They don't show you Humphrey Bogart's face and adopt the FPV cause supposedly his character, Vincent Parry, looks like an entirely different person. He was convicted for killing his wife and escaped from San Quentin prison... This runaway is receiving the help from Irene Jensen (Lauren Bacall). She helps him cause her own father has been falsely accused of murdering his wife... so Irene becomes obsessed with Vincent's case a man she believes to be innocent too. I mean, doesn't know for sure, could be assisting a cold blooded murderer for all she knows, but fair enough...
Then he doesn't want to implicate her any more, so prepares to leave the city and seeks for refugee in a friend's apartment, some trumpet amateur player named George....
And this is the precise moment the movie becomes totally insane, like absolute madness, for a good chop of 30 minutes or so. I couldn't believe my eyes! It's glorious...
Vincent decides to have a... Plastic surgery!!! (Tchan!) But the man that advices him to do so is... the Taxi Driver!!! (Tchan!); just this casual taxi driver that is taking him out of the city, now finds him a plastic surgeon and even for cheap, cause the surgeon is... an old friend of his that Would take "just a couple of hundreds"... (I supposed he's been taking a lot of clientele to the illegal clinic or something). This Taxi driver helps him cause he certainly understands how things are:
"I figured you slugged her with that ashtray because she made life miserable to you. I know how it is. I lived with my sister and her husband. Now, they get along fine, so fine that one day he throws a bread knife at her... she ducked.
That's the way it goes. Maybe if your wife had ducked, there be no trial, no Quentin, no on the lam... That's life"
I can't believe he says all this. I mean, what are the chances that a psychopath cabbie that knows a plastic surgeon, decides to help a convicted runaway on murder... and for free?!!! I guess: That's life... never ceases to amaze you.
So, they go to the illegal plastic clinic "up in the alley"... Vincent confesses to his new pal the Taxi Driver that he's a little uneasy (I'd be nervous before a massive facial surgery in a dumpster!!!), but the cabbie re-assures him:
"Don't be nervous. I know how bad this things can be. Just a couple of weeks ago I picked up a dame in my cab... She must've had her face lifted by one of them quacks. She got caught in the rain and the whole thing dropped down to here. She should've left it unlifted. But this guy is great. And no quack."
The camera shows the plastic surgeon, smoking...
I can't be sure they're being intentionally funny or not, yet...
Of all the looks from all the people, in all the towns in all the world, the surgeon picks Humphrey Bogart's face.
Magically turning this... ... into this
A person with this ability could make you look like Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, Greg Peck... But no, he chooses Bogart!
HB is maybe in the top three of the greatest male celebrities of all time, it's a cultural icon... but he achieved that in base of his personality, huge talent, screen presence and magnetism, not looks! I mean, at least not GOOD looks, you wouldn't call Humphrey Bogart handsome...or if you do, is just handsome in the ugly kind of way... like those cute ugly puppies that attracts hotties in the park. So yeah, in my opinion the surgeon fucked up. The movie even addresses this cause made the doctor say: "you'll look older, but feel 10 years younger" He doesn't look older to me... he looks slightly ugly. Like, they knew Boogie looked like shit... they also knew he didn't match with Lauren Bacall, he's old enough to be his father! Maybe even his grandfather (I know they were married! But as our Taxi pal says: That's life... this is movies)
Whatever. That's when it hit me. We are 40 minutes into this movie and we haven't seen the lead's man face yet, (mind that Classic Hollywood is very heavy celebrity driven); and the whole thing keeps going cause now we got Humphrey Bogart in some laughable bandages that looks like an orthopedic cast or something... and we even stop hearing his voice, cause the surgeon forbids him to talk!!! Crazy. Like, can you believe this shit?
Back to his friend's apartment, George, only to find out he has been murdered (Tchan!)... In the previous scene in the apartment (before the surgery) I was wondering, Why are they showcasing this trumpet in the middle of the room? and even talking about it, like, Why so much emphasis on it?...Ok who cares, your friend is a trumpet player, who caaaares!!!
This is why. He was murdered.... with his own trumpet! Not a gun, not a knife, not a rock, not poison or by choking him with hands or a rope... his trumpet!!! We see a fucking dented trumpet in the murder scene.
And Vincent of course picks up this "weapon" leaving fingerprints all over it.
What mind of a madman could think of something like this? Maybe Delmer Daves... he was also the scriptwriter... maybe the original novelist.
Come to think of it, might be really clever, cause Vincent was convicted of murdering his wife with an ashtray... which is already a weird weapon in itself. So, maybe is like a sign card of this killer to hit its victims with odd choices of weapon.
Naaah the fucked up: they pick a killing trumpet.
Back to the only place left for him to go: Irene-Lauren Bacall's place. But the effort of walking there makes him vanish (the poor fella is just out of a very very dangerous 90 minutes unhealthy surgery). So, Irene assist him and then we got this wonderful scene, where Lauren Bacall is holding a porcelain cup of tea and giving him to drink with a straw and through a little hole on Boogey's bandages...
And one of the finest moments, when he's explaining things to Irene through a notebook and a pencil, and she's reading. How could someone explain any of what happened?... like this:
"Taxi driver helped me. Tooked me to a plastic surgeon. Bandages stay on till the twelfth. I'm to eat only liquids."
The whole thing is so bizarre, so surreal. And it keeps going, cause after hydrating, now of course he wants to smoke, so... Lauren Bacall lights a cigarette for this badly hurt man, and puts it on a funny ladies-holder and into his mouth...
Next day. Now, the good doctor allowed him to smoke and drink, he can walk a mile or two and even climb one of San Francisco hills... but for some reason he's not allowed to sleep upwards down (it might turn his face into something more ugly than Bogart's face?) ... So... the logical thing happens: Vincent Parry must be tied to a bed in order not to accidentally turn over... I think you can identify this as the moment where Jack Warner finally came into the production and said:
Guys... What a fuck are you doing? You can't see Bogie's face, he can't talk, and now he's not allowed to move?: Why's Humphrey Bogart tied to a fucking bed?!
Cause from this moment on the movie... doesn't turn good, there're many many things that are wrong and weird (like Boogie's wig), but let's say begins transiting through at least more normal ways.
Still they somehow managed to smuggle this Romantic candle dinner scene between Lauren Bacall and Mummy Bogart, where they talk about baseball, baseball!!!
Then it follows your typical Noir plot until the end; you can see Warner's hand now... they even pull a reverse Casablanca thing as
an ending... with Vincent waiting at some bar for her (with the exact same white suit, Ricks wears)
Well, that's it. Funny, funny bad and classic. I still love you, movie.
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